Table Of Contentonap pregom Act
HaNIHIDS ' D v AO 3 A 0 j HILL 110d
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to dedicate this page of the guide to the following people for making this journey possible.
To my mother and father, for always supporting me throughout my life. I love the both of you
dearly.
To my younger sister Nina and younger brother Stephen, for looking up to me just as much as I
look up to the both of you.
To my aunts and grandmothers, for being my guardian angels.
To my uncles and grandfathers, for teaching me the meaning of hard work.
To my mentor Jeremy Cohen, for giving inc every opportunity to succeed.
To Scott Levenson and Steve Feldman, for teaching me how leadership comes from the heart.
To my "Test-Prep-Better-Half" Heidi Fisher, for being an amazing verbal specialist throughout the
years. Working alongside you is a blessing.
To the original AJA team: Adam Dressler, Jonathan Weed, and Andrew Burten, for teaching me
what it means to be a test prep professional.
To the new AJAM members: Michele O'Brien, Andrew Dahl, Ilan Caplan, Kalyan Ray-Mazumder,
Kyla Haggerty, and Tehya Baxter working with all of you is a privilege each and every day.
To the editors of this guide: Chance Gautney and Jackson Shain, your recommendations were
invaluable. Thank you.
To Lindsay Bressman, for all your efforts in helping me brand this guide.
To all the Private Prep Long Island directors: Stacy Berlin, Jen Morganstern, Jenny La Monica,
Allyson Stumacher, and Shana Wallace, for your immense support with every family.
To everyone in the Private Prep family, you are all amazing,
To "The Crew": Stephen Dagnell, John Castles, Paarus Sohi, James Panagos, Lou Marinos,
Charlie Castillo, Jared Levy, Mike Ryan, Tim Kolchinskiy, and Stan Shvartsberg, for being the
most incredible group of friends. You gentlemen mean the world to me.
To my dear friend, Bernadette Vingerhoets. The world I see is always brighter with you around.
And to my best friend (and diagram creator) David Hintz, for continuing to push me towards new
heights. We're just getting started.
Contents
Page
How a Children's Book Taught Me ACT Science 7
1 The Basics 9
1.1 The Types of Passages 1 0
1.2 Locators, Locators, Locators 1 1
1.3 Number Behavior: Trends in Tables and Figures 1 3
1.4 Math 1 5
1.5 Extrapolation and Estimation 1 6
1.6 The Data Bridge 1 7
1.7 Chapter Test: The Basics 1 9
2 Advanced Questions Types 3 1
2.1 Yes, Yes, No, No 32
34
2.2 Cannot Be Determined
**
35
2.3 Equations as Answer Choices
2.4 Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.5 Scatter Plots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
38
2.6 Water and Drying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . •
I .
. 39
2.7 Chapter Test: Advanced Question Types .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
• • • •
51
3 Scientific Method
52
3.1 The Elements of an Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... • •
• • •
HOW A CHILDREN'S BOOK TAUGHT ME ACT SCIENCE
I started tutoring math and science part-time during the summer of 2011 as a side job while completing my
Master's degree. At that time I was on my way to medical school when I suddenly found myself falling in love
with tutoring, especially SAT and ACT preparation. After some heavy consideration, I decided to embark on
this journey full-time, fine-tuning my skills as a tutor. Then, while tutoring privately I discovered Private Prep,
a tutoring company based in New York, and began tutoring full-time in the fall of 2012. As the spring of my first
school year approached I found myself seeing more and more students, eventually reaching a peak of around 30
per week. Given all my experience, the partners of the company asked me to join their training team and write a
guide of what was to become the ACT Science section. So, I did. I took what resources we currently had, gave
myself one week to go through all of them, and developed the first iteration of the ACT Science Strategy Guide.
It was raw and needed a lot of fine tuning-but it was a start. Still, I knew I needed to gain even more
experience. The following school year I pushed to tutor even more, and each year since have striven to eclipse
the year before; I knew this would be my path to gaining more knowledge, and eventually sharing it.
The more I tutored, the more consistencies I found in ACT Science. Each year I added more to the guide
and came up with better ways to train new tutors. But, I still felt I was missing an overall approach, the glue to
tie all of the strategies together. I wanted to be able to capture the essence of ACT Science in just one sentence.
Finally, in the spring of 2013, I found my answer. I had the pleasure of working with a student who was scoring
approximately five to six points higher on ACT Science than any other section, which is atypical During one of
our lessons I asked the student why he thought this was the case. His response was, "It's like the book Where's
Waldo. There is absolute chaos happening on the page, but your main job is just to find Waldo." Brilliant, I
thought! I finally had my answer (If you are unfamiliar with this children's book, please search the internet for
pictures. It will make my message clearer!).
When you work through the problems of this guide I encourage you to remember these words of wisdom.
This is the only section, SAT or ACT, where the answer is staring right at you. You simply need to find it Do
not try to use comprehension, do not try to understand what the experiments are about, just...find Waldo. This
is a section that tests your ability to understand what is important, to know what is not important, to use logic
and deductive reasoning, to move efficiently, and to dismiss fatigue (it is the last section after all!). Once that
mindset sinks in, I guarantee you will be happy with your score increases.
Please reach out to me at [email protected] if you have any questions I would wish you the best of
luck on your journey to improve, but you won't need it. You are already a bright student with a craving to
linprove--you just need the right approach. I am humbled by this opportunity to show you what I believe to be
the most efficient route to what you are seeking.
For science!
CHAPTER 1
THE BASICS
1.1 The Types of Passages
BRUCE LEE
Be formless. Shapeless. Like water.
Most ACT Science study guides will inform you that there are three different passage types in the follow,,
formats:
PASSAGE TYPE AMOUNT IN SECTION NUMBER OF QUESTIONS
5
3
Data Representation
6
Research Summary 3
7
Conflicting Viewpoints 1
This analysis is not wrong, but it's also not completely correct. The ACT is forever changing, and you need to h
adaptable on the day of your exam. The structure shown above has been dependable for many years. Howeve
in late 2014 and early 2015, the structure shifted. Instead, those exams contained 6 passages in total, not 7, an
each passage had one more question than you would anticipate. This is the ACT afterall, so curveballs should
expected every now and then. Fortunately for us, these changes really do not effect us. The approach in this boo
ensures that you will be prepared for structural changes.
We will be tackling the ACT Science section with the following structure in mind:
•
PASSAGE TYPE AMOUNT IN SECTION NUMBER OF QUESTIONS
Conflicting Viewpoints 1, maybe 2? 7 , maybe 8?
Everything Else The Rest 5 - 7
This may seem silly, but having a flexible structure will allow you to mentally adjust to whatever structure
presented on test day. The conflicting viewpoints passage has a certain approach (you will know this passage wh€
you see it), but the others all follow the same methods. Do not worry too much about the structure of the sectioi
Worry about the tactics.
If it will put your mind at ease to know how many passages are in a particular section, this information is ofte
stated in the first sentence of the directions at the beginning of the section.
•
DIRECTIONS: There are seven passages in this test.
Each passage is followed by several questions. After read-
ing a passage, choose the best answer to each question
and fill in the corresponding oval on your answer docu-
ment. You may refer to the passages as often as neces-
sary.
You are NOT permitted to use a calculator on this test.
„.
10 I For the Love of ACT Science
1.2 Locators, Locators, Locators
C C
77
Always go back to the passage with a purpose.
If you read nothing else but this one section you will probably improve your science score. The most important
part of properly tackling ACT Science is knowing where to look first. We cannot stress this enough. In order
to figure out where to look first, attempt to locate the following "first locators" in the question:
t Figure 1, Figure 2, Table 1, Table 2, etc. - Your most important locator. This is your starting point for
most questions.
ft "Based on the results of study..." - Look at the data of a particular study.
, e "Based on study...." - Your locator could be in the text of the study, or the data.
ai "According to the information provided", "According to the passage", "Based on the passage" - Your locator
is in the text.
Once you have identified where to look, the next step is knowing what to look for. This is your Waldo, or
"second locators". Do not go back to the passage without a purpose. Attempt to locate the following in the
question and passage:
• Units - m, s, kg, N, etc. Your most important second locator.
•Science terminology - pH, temperature bath, detector, deposit - Any phrase that pops out and feels different
from the directions of the question.
• X and Y axes labels
• Answer choices. Sometimes your best locator is found by comparing the key phrases of the choices.
Deveolp the habit of finding your first and second locators before attempting to solve each question Doing so will
improve your speed and efficiency when going through the ACT science section. In addition, your accuracy on
early questions will be nearly flawless and you will use less energy when answering questions. All of the preceding
locators matter when handling the last section of your ACT.
Michael Cerro j 11
Your Objective: Circle the first and second locators in the questions and answer choices below.
corresponding locators in the passage. ( 1 1 , 1 , 1
QUESTIONS
LOCATOR EXAMPLE 1
1. Based on Table 1, as the volume of NaOri ith
Experiment 1
creased, the pH of the solution:
A student decided to perform a titration experiment
A. increased only.
to neutralize a HO solution. 50 mL of a 3 mmole/mL
HO solution was poured into a beaker and placed under 13. decreased only.
a buret (a tall, thin, graduated cylinder with a stop valve C. remained constant.
at the bottom). The buret was filled with the NaOH D. cannot be determined from the given infor-
solution. The student slightly opened the stop valve on mation.
the buret and recorded the pH using various indicators.
She recorded her results in the table below. 2. The student hypothesized that as the amount of
USX increased in the beaker, the pH of the solutton
would increase. Do the results of Experiment 2
Table 1 support this hypothesis?
Volume of NaOH (mL) pH of solution F. Yes, as the volume of USX increased the pH
of the solution increased.
0 3
G. Yes, as the volume of USX increased the pfl
2 5
of the solution decreased.
4 6 H. No, as the volume of USX increased the pH
6 7 of the solution increased.
J. No, as the volume of USX increased the pH
Experiment 2 of the solution decreased.
Next, the student poured an unknown solution,
USX, into the beaker and measured the pH. She recorded 3. Based on the passage, if 100 mL of HC1 was used in-
her results in Table 2. stead of 50 mL, how many mmole of HO would be
present in the beaker before the start of the titra-
tion?
Table 2 A. 3 nunole
B. 50 nunole
Volume of USX (mL) pH of solution
C. 100 nnnole
0 7
D. 300 unnole
2 4
4 2
6 2
12 1 For the Love of ACT Science
1.3 Number Behavior: Trends in Tables and Figures
CC
71
It is not about the actual numbers, it is about how they behave.
When looking at a table or figure, develop a habit of instantly identifying trends. This will allow you to interpet
data with speed and ensure that you are ready for many of the basic questions presented on the ACT Science
section. More importantly, do not concern yourself with the numbers themselves. More advanced questions are
looking to test whether or not you can develop trends between different variables and then correlate these trends
with the correct answer choice.
"Your Objective: Identify the appropriate trends and answer the questions in the following examples.
TRENDS EXAMPLE 1 Q U E S T I O N S
4. Based on Table 1, as mass increases, F:
F. increases only.
Table 1 G. decreases only.
mass a H. remains constant.
J. varies, but with no general.
Trial (kg) (m/s2) (°C) (N)
5. Based on Table 1, as a increases, F:
1 2 3 25 6
A. increases only.
2 6 3 25 18
B. decreases only.
3 10 3 25 30 C. remains constant.
4 14 3 25 42 D. varies, but with no general.
•
5 2 3 25 6
6. Based on Table 1, as T increases, F: •
6 2 6 25 12 F. increases only.
7 2 12 25 24 G. decreases only.
H. remains constant.
8 2 24 25 48
J. varies, but with no general.
9 2 3 25 6
10 2 3 27 3.7 7. Based on Table 2, as the number of weeks increase,
the pesticide concentration:
11 2 3 29 2.4
A. increases only.
12 2 3 31 1.9 B. decreases only.
C. remains constant.
Table 2 D. varies, but with no general.
Pesticide Concentration Bioniass
Based on Table 2, as pesticide concentration in-
Weeks (kg/m3) (kg) creases, biomass:
F. increases only.
151
1 22
G. decreases only.
177
2 49 H. remains constant.
3 51 180 J. varies, but with no general.
162
4 28
QUESTIONS
TRENDS EXAMPLE 2
9. According to Figure 1, for Trial 1, as time incr
( sos
Trial 1 temperature:
- e -Trial 2 A. increases only.
20 B. decreases only.
C. remains constant.
D. varies, but with no general.
15
10. According to Figure 1, for Trial 2, as time increases,
temperature:
F. increases only.
10
G. decreases only.
H. remains constant.
J. varies, but with no general.
11. According to Figure 2, as species A underwent each
43-e. 4)-
successive treatment, the percent that survived:
0
A. increased only.
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
B. decreased only.
time (s)
C. remained constant.
D. varied, but with no general.
Figure 1
12. According to Figure 2, as species B underwent each
r--1 Treatment 1
successive treatment, the percent that survived:
[iii Treatment 2
F. increased only.
Treatment 3 G. decreased only.
H. remained constant.
J. varied, but with no general.
13. According to Figure 2, as species C underwent each
successive treatment, the percent that survived:
A. increased only.
B. decreased only.
C. remained constant.
D. varied, but with no general.
41( 14. According to Figure 2, as species D underwent each
successive treatment, the percent that survived:
F. increased only.
G. decreased only.
H. remained constant.
J. varied, but with no general.
Figure 2
14 For the Love of ACT Science
